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Thursday, July 21, 2016

Another black man shot. AFL-CIO's pathetic statement on the present state of affairs

By Richard Mellor

AFSCME Local 444, retired

Many of us have probably seen this recent video of a behavioral therapist
helping an autistic man who was shot by the Miami police as he was laid on his
back with his hands in the air. I have to say, the guy that was arguing with me
the other day who wouldn’t back down no matter how sensible my argument was,
that the proper slogan is not “Black
Lives Matter” but “All Lives Matter”, please drop that and just tell it as
you really feel it. Admit to the world what is behind this argument for you.
That you have a real problem giving black people any credit for anything other
than perhaps being good basketball players.

I might be an optimist but I believe people are generally polite
and patient, especially black folks in the US, as they have a history here that
gives them an outlook on the world that most of us don’t have. But stop
insulting them, and the rest of us by arguing that the former slogan is wrong
and the latter would be more politically correct, after all don’t all lives
really matter? Of course they do, but I do not believe that it is a concern for
“all” lives that is behind support
for this statement.

Mind you, in most cases this argument is made by people who haven’t
taken a political step their entire lives beyond sticking a piece of paper in a
ballot box every four years to elect people in political parties that don’t
represent their interests.What lies
behind it is their inability to give black folks credit for anything except
athletic skills. They are threatened by their success, encouraged by their
failures as it proves that the conditions that exist in the black communities
are due to their failures and not centuries of racial oppression under brutal
regimes.Earlier this week, we
likened the regime that ruled the South until the US Civil War to ISIS and
that is not an exaggeration. After a decade of instability, the regime was
reinstated inn the form of Jim Crow.

Maybe I’m being too
hard on some people. But I ask those who argue for “All Lives Matter”,
please think long and hard about it, talk about it with friends, talk about it
with African American friends. . Don’t be afraid of history, real history, no
one is asking for atonement, just recognition of history as it actually
happened.

But what compelled me to write this (I hope not too long) commentary is to
point to the pathetic public statement about the recent killings of black
people culminating in the shooting of the cops in Dallas and Baton Rouge from
Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO.For the young people and the millions of workers who are members of
unions affiliated to the AFL-CIO and have never heard of it, it is the national
body of organized labor in the US with 12 million workers in it. It has
tremendous potential power, it could, if its members were mobilized and active,
bring the US economy to a halt.

Here is what Trumka writes. I had to search for it on the
AFL-CIO webpage which has a nice picture of a pilot on it to give the
impression that it represents professionals rather than workers.

Statement
by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the Shootings in Baton Rouge

July 18, 2016

Our hearts are again
heavy with grief.

On Sunday, three of our brothers at the International Union of Police
Associations were killed in another senseless act of violence: Mathew Gerald,
41, a Marine veteran and father of two daughters; Brad Garafola, 45, who had
served three tours in Iraq and was the father of two sons and two daughters;
and Montrell Jackson, 32, a new father of a baby boy whose last post on
Facebook said: “Please don’t let hate infect your heart.”

This happened one day after the last slain Dallas police officer, Patrick
Zamarripa, a 32 year old Navy veteran and father of a two-year old daughter was
buried.

The other Dallas officers laid to rest last week included Lorne Ahrens, 48, a
14-year veteran and father of two; Michael Smith, 55, an Army veteran 27 years
on the force and father of two daughters; Michael Krol, 40, nine years on the
police force; and Brent Thompson, 43, a transit police officer, father,
grandfather, and newlywed. We honor the commitment of all these men to
public service.

We mourn their loss to their families and our community. We pray for the swift
recovery of our wounded brothers in Baton Rouge and Dallas. And we condemn the
appalling and indefensible acts of violence that are devastating families and
communities across our

country.

Contact: Charity Jackson (202)
637-5018

This is childish yes, but it is worse than that, it is
criminal.There is a higher percentage
of black people in unions than whites. He calls the police “brothers” despite the fact that for decades it is the police that
break strikes, escort scabs through our picket lines and historically committed
gross violence against working people as those before us struggled to build
unions.

A child could have written this, a preacher most likely
would have and they have preachers at all the international union conventions
as a cover for their own inaction. There is no analysis. Nothing about
institutionalized racism, systematic violence against black people and workers
in general by the police throughout our history. Not a hint that while opposing
such tactics as the indiscriminate shooting of police, we have to understand
why it might happen, what is behind it all.

Along with this we have the KKK at the RNC in Cleveland.
Where is the labor movement?Why is the
BLM movement not joined by mass participation by the trade union movement in a
united action that could drive the Klan and the cops that protect them out of
town? The KKK is an anti-union terrorist group. Trumka and every top leader in
the AFL-CIO is to blame.

But if you are active in a union, if you are a leader in a
local where the pressure of this moribund class collaborationist bureaucracy
can be weaker, if you are not openly working to build fighting oppositions
within our movement that condemns the role of the Trumka’s and others and
working to replace them, then you too share the blame.Every local should be passing resolutions
supporting Black Lives Matter and linking the struggle against racism with the
struggle for jobs, housing, healthcare and other social needs, racism
undermines working class unity and that makes it harder for us to win these
things..

It is in the
interests of white workers to do so. It’s not simply a moral issue; it’s a
class issue, it’s about all of us, about the survival of all our families,
children and grandchildren, and when we take foreign policy in to account, the
survival of humanity.

Here is part of the problem, another pathetic statement from
the AFL-CIO about the economy and jobs:

AFL-CIO Jobs and the Economy:

The AFL-CIO is ready to work
with anyone—business, government, investors—who wants to create good jobs and
help restore America's middle class and challenge policies that stand in the
way of giving America the chance to go back to work. The union movement is
partnering with such organizations as the Clinton Global Initiative to find
innovative ways to create good jobs that support workers and their families.

country.

Clinton’s Global Initiative Fund, business, government,
investors, that’s the problem right there.Working “with” these forces is
why your leaders are betraying you, not the mafia, the legal gangsters. Working
with and uniting the organized workers with all workers and our communities,
the unorganized, the racial minorities, women, immigrants, those fighting the destruction
of our environment and the struggle for gender equality, this is how we create “good jobs” for everyone and leave a
society that can nurture our children not kill them.

My former union Afscme is having its International
Convention in Las Vegas this week. I was at the last one there I think it was
1988. At the end of the week they walk down to a striking hotel, the president
puts on a baseball cap to make people think he’s just a working slob like the
rest of us and they chant about “we’re
the union the mighty, mighty, union” and stuff like that.But the bosses don’t fear that, they know it
is fluff.The union will be out of there
in a day and things will be back to normal, strikers might be on the lines for
another year until they lose all they have for that extra $2 an hour.

And Hillary Clinton will be there as her husband was when I
last attended an International Convention, there to make sure the relationship
her and her class has built with the heads of the union is safe, the members
contained, labor peace intact.

I’ve said enough; I’m getting madder as I write. But my last
bit of advice to the rank and file member is to stop whining. Stop trying to
seek an individual way out through climbing the management ladder at work or
through a cushy job in the union apparatus.

Things are not going to get better until you act.*

*You can begin by calling the contact person inn the AFL-CIO statement and making your views known. Simply complaining that it is nowhere near adequate would be a start